1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus for checking unauthorized access to information and a method of performing the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for preventing unauthorized retrieval of information that is stored on storage of an information processing apparatus.
2. Background of the Invention
Thin clients are adopted for information systems of corporations in order to prevent inadvertent information leakage. The thin clients do not have non-volatile storages such as hard disk drives. Therefore, a variety of business-related data is stored not on the thin clients but on a server. The data is highly secured and the data is protected even when the thin clients are stolen.
Thin clients are implemented by an image transmission method or a screen transmission method. According to the image transmission method, the server transmits operating systems and other data to the individual thin clients when thin clients are booting. Under the condition that the thin clients are powered off, the transmitted data is deleted. According to the screen transmission method, the server transmits to the thin clients the output of the programs executed on the server, for example, screen images, and the thin clients transmit to the server the input from the users into the thin clients.
The image transmission method significantly increases the network traffic by the transmission of the operating systems and other data. The information systems of corporations heavily load the network particularly around the business-start time of a day. This results in a long booting time for the respective thin clients.
To solve these issues, the non-volatile storages in the thin clients may store thereon the basic parts of the operating systems, and the server may store thereon the updates of the operating systems and user data and transmit the updates of the operating systems and user data to the thin clients. Here, the C and D drives of a thin client or personal computer can be respectively configured non-volatile and volatile. In this method, however, the storages in the thin clients (for example, the C drive) may store user data, and the security may thus be impaired.
The screen transmission method has a different drawback. Since the server executes programs for the many thin clients, the server load is enormous. Therefore, the corporations have to make a large investment in equipment. This is because the processing load for the application programs must be borne by a single or small number of servers. Such a server needs to execute multi-user programs. This need of the server(s) limits the degree of freedom.
As described above, the information systems based on the thin client architecture have tradeoffs between the security and the reduction of communication/processing load. Therefore, it is an object of an aspect of the innovations herein to provide an information processing apparatus, a method and a program product which are capable of overcoming the above drawbacks. The above and other objects can be achieved by combinations described in the independent and other claims. The dependent claims define further advantageous and exemplary combinations of the innovations herein.